Lost Planet 2 Review

Feature-for-feature, Lost Planet 2 should be an improvement over the original. It sports four-player online co-op, a robust multiplayer mode complete with unlockable goodies, and impressive visual design with lots of variety and artistic flair. Yet amazingly, this third-person sci-fi shooter represents a major step backward for one important reason: It isn't much fun. Not only did developer Capcom not address the problems of the original, but it exacerbated them. Fundamental design flaws inhabit almost every gameplay mechanism. Awful mission design leaves you wondering how to proceed; abysmal AI makes playing on your own an exercise in masochism; and an overreliance on knockback attacks and other bizarre design choices are sure to inspire worldwide epidemics of controller-throwing rage. Not even replacing your three useless AI companions with real-life buddies alleviates all of the pain because the frustrations are woven into the very fabric of the experience. Entertaining multiplayer modes and some enjoyable, larger-than-life battles against looming insectoids lift Lost Planet 2 out of the abyss, though even those aspects aren't without their problems. This is a beautiful game you desperately want to like, yet it goes out of its way to punish you for it.